Phonetasy by the Rollin' Phones on Phono Suecia - the
over-zealous work of a trendy marketing phonatic? Be that as it may, what
lies beneath the uncommunicative, nay miscommunicative, CD cover is
a wealth of intriguing, sometimes excellent music.

There will be those who will never listen to saxophone quartets on principle
- the principle being, presumably, that they are bound to sound jazzy, muzak-like
or plain unpleasant. Yet a lot can be achieved with a soprano, alto, tenor
and baritone saxophone - the higher registers can sound uncannily like clarinets
and oboes, the lower registers bassoon-like - especially in the hands (and
mouths) of the masterly Swedish Saxophone Quartet a.k.a. the Rollin' Phones,
who have been going strong since 1986. And to their credit, all the works
on the disc have been commissioned by them over the last fifteen years or
so.

Anders Nilsson's Phonetasy is a good choice to open the programme.
It is inventive, varied and marvellously lyrical, with many moments of real
beauty. It is a hard work to follow, and Niklas Breman's Dinkum Thinkum
II is probably the worst choice. The title comes, as it happens, from
the name of a machine, in a story by Robert Heinlein, that starts to think
and ask existential questions. There is a deliberately strong rhythmic roboticness
to this piece which, however, starts to sound repetitive and wearying by the
second hearing.

The Saxophone Quartet no.1 by Gunnar Jansson, the oldest featured composer
- and probably the only one to have written a saxophone sextet! - is a straightforwardly
attractive work, as traditional as a quartet for saxophones written in the
1990s can be. Plenty of ideas, plenty of strong melodies and harmonies, a
satisfying whole.

Fredrik Söderberg describes the inspiration for his Ocellatus
as "fish, a bit of jazz and a little Philip Glass": if nothing else, curiosity
should attract listeners. Ocellatus is a type of fish with a strange rutting
ritual involving the burial of mollusc shells, and this Söderberg somehow
attempts to capture in his music, with the help of "two or three deliberately
monotonous themes" (hence, presumably, the Philip Glass reference). This piece
was actually commissioned by the Rollin' Phones themselves in 2001, and is
much more action-packed and worthwhile than it Söderberg's description
suggests, with the various percussion sounds adding an extra dimension - Söderberg
really does succeed in evoking the peculiar seabed shenanigans of ocellatus.

Continuing the watery theme, the Siren of Marie Samuelsson's work is
of the nymph variety, with the original idea being that the baritone would
represent the ship's foghorn and the other three instruments the sirens, bewitching
and luring. Samuelsson changed her mind about this idea during composition,
but listening to the music it is hard not to picture such a scene. All four
saxes play leggiero throughout, lending the piece a fog-bound, mesmerising
feel.

Jan Levander is represented by two works, though Lullaby to Katja Marie
is little over three minutes long. He wrote this for his two-year-old daughter,
and describes the piece as "a kind of game in which you have to follow the
melody through the different sizes of saxophone." Augmented by some light
percussion, this is a tuneful little work, easy on the ears of a youngster
about to nod off. The same cannot be said about Levander's other work, Nisse
(George), also for quartet and percussion, which is both the most modernistic
work, and the most postmodernist, and the jazziest, on the disc! According
to the composer, the five movements can be played in any order, with various
other leeways for the performers, the idea being that each performance should
be unique. The Rollin' Phones, who commissioned the work in 2001, play the
five sections A (Back), B (Bottom), C (One Side), D (Front), E (Other Side)
here in the order A, E, D, C, B, which means it starts off well - for those
who enjoy expressionistic music, at least - and then more or less gets worse
as the work progresses. A and E and C are the modernist pieces, D begins Kurt
Weillishly but soon turns to the clichés of jazz funk, with an over-the-top
drum presence, and B, said by Levander to have a "hiphop beat", has even more
tediously repetitive jazz/ethnic drumming.

The recording quality in the soundproof studio is excellent, with the saxophones
ideally balanced.

The booklet is also excellent - glossy pages, photos, informative and varied
notes, including a short interview with Neta Norén, commentaries on
each piece by their composers, brief but informative biographies on the Quartet
and each of the composers, full track information - and all this in a clear
font on a clean background.